


Constellations on the Skin

by wtchpnk



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Body Modification, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Nipple Piercings, Piercings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtchpnk/pseuds/wtchpnk
Summary: “Okay, getting back to the point,” Sirius cut in. “Moony. What the hell are those.”Remus raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing down at his chest in a sweeping motion. “You mean these? Pete’s just explained it. I thought your hearing was supposed to better now with your Animagus form.”
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope to have this all written and posted before term starts up again on Jan 6th, but I was too impatient to post something, so here's the first bit!

“What the HELL are those, Moony??” Sirius said, a little too loudly. It was their first morning back at school, sixth year, and Remus had just walked out of the dorm bathroom with wet hair, a towel clinging to his hips, and matching pieces of metal through his nipples.

“Hmm?” said James, voice raspy with sleep as he drew back the curtains around his bed. Then he too caught sight of Remus’ chest and blinked hard. Remus, for his part, reddened slightly at the attention, but would not have walked out of the bathroom shirtless if he minded the teasing he knew would follow. Well, that and the piercings were still new enough that he wanted to give them as much of a chance to breathe as possible before donning his robes for the day.

Peter poked his head out from his bed then, eyes landing on Remus. “Shit, Moony, you pierced your nipples?”

“No,” Remus deadpanned, rolling his eyes at them all. “I paid someone else to do it for me.”

“Is this a Muggle thing?” Sirius demanded. He’d decided over the summer he was going to familiarize himself with all things Muggle, but had not yet had much of a chance. “What’s it for?”

Peter snorted. “They’re not _for_ anything, mate. It’s just another form of jewelry, like how Evans has her ears pierced.”

“Wait,” said James, sitting up suddenly, eyes widening. “Does Evans have - y’know - those, too?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Okay, getting back to the point,” Sirius cut in. “Moony. What the hell are those.”

Remus raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing down at his chest in a sweeping motion. “You mean these? Pete’s just explained it. I thought your hearing was supposed to better now with your Animagus form.”

The other boys snickered, James wandered off to take the next shower, and the day went on.

**  
**

By their third class of the day, Sirius had developed something of a fixation on the small bars of metal. He’d almost gotten to the point of making a list of all the questions he had about them by lunch - were there other pieces of jewelry you could put through them? Were there other places you could get a piercing? How much did it hurt? When that question occurred to him, he crossed his arms over his chest and discreetly pinched one nipple through his shirt, digging the edges of his nails into the sides as much as he could to try to replicate the stabbing. Not as discreetly as he thought, however, as Peter gave him a funny look, eyes flickering down to his hand. Sirius released his nipple immediately and uncrossed his arms, hastily returning to taking notes.  


After the day’s lessons were over and the boys had all returned to the common room, Sirius really did make a list of his questions, while Remus got a start on the homework for Defense and James and Peter played a game of chess. He watched Remus out of the corner of his eye in between scrawling, looking too long, until finally Remus fixed him with a look and asked, “What, Pads?”  


“Nothing,” Sirius said, cheeks warming. “I just- I was wondering - I have some questions, about-” His eyes darted to Remus’ chest and back.  


Remus sighed, set down his quill, and made for the stairs up to their dorm. He turned back when Sirius didn’t follow, jerking his head, and Sirius got the idea. Once they were in the privacy of the dorm, Remus turned to him.  


“I don’t want everyone knowing about them, or they might want to see, and that means seeing other things too. You three already know though, so…” he shrugged, and slipped his shirt over his head. The piercings glinted in the light. Sirius’ mouth went very dry, until Remus huffed.  


“You said you had questions,” he said, and Sirius startled.  


“Right! Yes. Um,” he stammered, and had to glance at the piece of parchment he’d brought up with him. “Did it hurt?”  


“Obviously, Pads,” Remus rolled his eyes at him, but with a gentle smile. “They stab a needle through and then put the jewelry in. Even with the transformations every month it still hurt. Have you ever given any thought to what the inside of your nipple feels like?”  


Sirius nearly flinched. “No, but - well, I did try pinching myself earlier to see what it was like,” he admitted, feeling a little silly.  


To his credit, Remus didn’t laugh, but he couldn’t fight off a grin. “Okay, so imagine that, but maybe ten times worse. Our pain tolerances are probably a little different, but I’m not saying anyone really enjoys the process, per se. What else?”  


“Can you get piercings in other places? Pete said it was like Evans having her ears pierced, but are there others beyond that?”  


“Pretty much anywhere you wanna stick a piece of metal, they can do it,” Remus said. “They had a notebook you could flip through showing other piercings they’d done, quite the variety. I don’t know if I want any more, though.”  


“Why those?” It hadn’t been on his list of questions, but Sirius couldn’t deny wondering a little.  


Remus lifted a shoulder. “Dunno,” he said. “Wasn’t really too picky about where, except that I knew I didn’t want anything sharp near my dick, and the facial ones might have drawn too much attention. Could’ve gone with an ear piercing, it probably would’ve been hidden enough by my hair, but I kind of wanted to be able to see it too.”  


Sirius tried to ignore the flare of heat he felt at Remus saying the words “my dick” so nonchalantly, but he was insanely curious now about what those sort of piercings might look like - or feel like. That would most definitely require further investigation on his own part, somehow.  


“Why did you want a piercing at all? Not necessarily that one, but any,” he said instead.  


Remus’ cheeks went pink this time. “Well. You may have noticed I’ve got an awful lot of marks on my body that I didn’t have much say in.”  


Sirius nodded, cataloguing the worst ones in his mind.  


“I wanted there to be something I did have a say in. Something I chose. A tattoo might have been okay too, but they’re more expensive, and if I hadn’t liked these I could’ve just taken them out and they would’ve closed over. Plus, I’m pretty sure that since they’re not actually a part of my body, it won’t be possible for the wolf to destroy them in the same way as a tattoo,” he said, “but that’s just a theory. Not a lot of research on werewolves and body modification, y’know.”  


“Not a lot of research on werewolves and a lot of things,” Sirius agreed, thinking, not for the first time, how unfair it all was and how much he wished he could change things for Moony. He was startled out of this line of thinking, however, by Remus asking if he wanted to touch them.  


“What?” was all he could say, surprised, even as he felt a really quite overwhelming urge to do so, a strong wave of needing to know what how they felt under his fingers.  


Remus blushed, much more than he had only moments ago. “I just- I thought maybe you’d want to see what they’re like. As much as you can without actually having them yourself,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be weird or anything, they’re just nipples, we’ve all got them,” he rambled on.  


“No,” said Sirius, “no, I know. It’s- yeah, I kinda do, if that’s okay.”  


“Yes,” Remus breathed.  


At that moment, the door flew open and they both jumped back a little. James rushed in, barely looking at them, making a beeline for his broom. As he went back out, he wolf whistled at Remus, who had moved to put his shirt back on.  


“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and not on my bed!” he called out, pulling the door closed. Sirius and Remus both turned alarming shades of red, avoiding eye contact. When they awkwardly went back down to the common room a moment later, they still couldn’t look at each other.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I'd call these chapters so much as "hey I've written another 1k or so, let's post it and get it out of here" things.

Far from having his curiosity sated, Sirius was now finding it even harder to focus on anything other than imagining what the piercings might feel like if he had gotten to touch them, what Remus’ nipples might feel like as he brushed his fingers over them, what Remus - but no, it was best not to go down that line of thought, no matter how insistently it kept returning. _Moony didn’t mean anything by it_ , he told himself firmly. _You’re reading too much into it_. But after the second time Frank had to nudge him to get his attention in Ancient Runes, which made the fifth time someone had had to nudge him so far today, he knew it was hopeless. He’d just have to find his courage and ask Remus, and then maybe he’d be able to think about something else for more than five minutes. Otherwise it seemed he was doomed to keep taking elbows to the ribs, and they were very nearly starting to bruise, he imagined.  


He got his chance later that evening, when Evans, shockingly, agreed to work on the Arithmancy essay with James as long as they went to the library to do so. James had never looked so pleased to be the only one of the three taking Arithmancy. Sirius half suspected he’d signed up for it purely because Evans had, despite his insistence that he hadn’t signed up for any other electives just because she was taking them. Peter was in detention after having been caught making the week’s kitchen run to stock up on snacks, which the other three would’ve felt bad about except that he’d been sent with the Map, and yet somehow managed to get caught on the way down regardless, so they still had nothing to snack on.  


“Moony?” he asked, once James had gone. Remus made a hum of acknowledgement as he checked Peter’s Charms essay, making notes in the margins.  


“Can I still - I have more questions,” he said quietly, and Remus stopped mid-stroke of his quill to look at him. A blot of ink stained the parchment.  


“Come along then,” was his reply, and they both set down what they were doing.  


In their dorm, Sirius lost his nerve, his mouth suddenly dry. “I, uh. You had- had asked if I-” and Remus understood.  


“Here,” he said, but this time he didn’t take his shirt off, only lifted it. It seemed to take ages for it to slide up his long, scarred torso, but then there was a long expanse of stomach, chest, the flash of light off metal again. Sirius, dying with the need to know, almost couldn’t make his arm move. As he willed his muscles to respond, Remus said, “Careful, they’re only a couple weeks healed.”  


The metal was surprisingly warm under his fingers and felt like, well, metal. He pushed the bar gently from one side to the other, twisted it a fraction. He glanced up at Remus’ face and saw that he was holding very still. Looking back down at the jewelry, and feeling bolder now that he’d at least managed to touch one, Sirius ran a finger ever so softly over Remus’ nipple itself, trying to feel the bar underneath. He couldn’t tell it was there, and so he tried again, this time applying more pressure, looking back up at Remus’ face to watch for any sign of pain. There was none, but he noticed that the amber of Remus’ eyes had been swallowed almost completely by the black of his pupils.  


Remus took Sirius’ other hand and placed it on his chest, and Sirius mirrored what he was doing, exploring the sensation of metal under skin and the soft points of Remus’ nipples. Neither boy dared breathe. The room was deafeningly quiet for a moment, and Sirius felt that any longer spent touching would be too long, and give too much away, and let his hands drop back to his sides. It felt foolish, having them just hang at his sides, but he didn’t know what to do with them, much less what to do with himself. Remus lowered his shirt.  


“Alright, Pads?” he asked, voice soft and low.  


“Alright,” Sirius answered, wondering if he'd ever been less alright.  


“More questions?”  


“Can you take me to get it done, next Hogsmeade weekend?” Sirius asked in a rush. “It shouldn’t be any trouble to slip away. And we can get Prongs and Wormtail to cover for us.”  


“You want- really?” Remus seemed surprised, for some reason.  


“Well, maybe not necessarily my nipples,” Sirius amended. “But something. I’d have to see the other options, probably.”  


“Yeah. Yeah, okay, we’ll see if it’s possible,” said Remus. “It’ll take a bit of planning.”  


**  
**

“You want to borrow the cloak to do _what_?”  


“Moony’s gonna take me to get a piercing! We just need to fly off far enough to catch the Knight Bus without anyone noticing,” Sirius explained around a mouthful of omelette.  


“Mum might actually kill me,” James replied faintly. He levelled a look of disbelief at Remus, who at least made a decent attempt at a guilty expression.  


“It wouldn’t necessarily be a visible one,” Sirius said with a leer. Peter choked on the blueberry scone he’d just taken a bite of.  


James groaned and buried his head in his hands. “Moony, mate, you’re a bad influence.”  


Remus only grinned into his pumpkin juice in response.  


“At least it’s not a tattoo!” Peter said helpfully.  


The day of the next Hogsmeade weekend dawned sunny and crisp, and James reluctantly handed over the cloak before they went down to breakfast, a nearly mourning look on his face.  


“Do not lose it,” he warned both Sirius and Remus. Remus tucked it into his bag with a solemn nod. They’d decided that Sirius would do the actual flying, since he was more experienced at it, while Remus sat behind him and focused on keeping the cloak over the two of them.  


At breakfast, Sirius inhaled his food in a way unbefitting of his upbringing, and then prodded at Remus to get him to eat faster.  


“If you’re so eager you can take the one-eyed witch passage instead and wait in Hogsmeade alone,” Remus grumbled, but the prodding continued until Peter knocked his tea over, soaking Sirius’ side as well as the table. Once Sirius had left to go change shirts (“it’ll still feel sticky,” he argued when James made a move to cast a drying spell), Remus gave Peter the last slice of his bacon.  


**  
**

They reconvened at the front entrance and made their way down with the rest of the students, eager to get off the grounds for a day. Finally, far too slowly for Sirius’ liking, they were in Hogsmeade, and then at the Shrieking Shack, and then he and Remus were on a broom together, soaring, draped in the cloak. Remus had the cloak pinned tightly between his arms and Sirius’ waist, and was shielding his face from the wind by leaning it against Sirius’ back. Somewhat unfortunately, this meant that every breath he took filled him with the scent of Sirius, heady and intoxicating, so it was with great relief that he clambered off the broom some 20 minutes later when they decided it was safe to touch back down.  


Sirius waited until he’d tucked the cloak back into his bag before throwing his wand hand out in front of him, calling the Knight Bus to them. It appeared instantly with a bang, and it was only by dint of their quick reflexes that they avoided having their feet run over. By the time they’d climbed aboard, told the driver their destination, and seated themselves, Remus felt slightly more in control of his runaway mind.  


The place they’d chosen was not the same place Remus had gone, but a small shop in Manchester called Inkwell. It was closer than going all the way to London, and would leave them some time to explore the city or return to wander around Hogsmeade. Remus had worried a little about the roughness of the Knight Bus and flying back, depending on what piercing Sirius chose - his return trip from getting the nipple piercings had been a very careful one, trying to avoid even his shirt rubbing against them - but Sirius hadn’t really decided what he wanted yet, and there were several options that wouldn’t require so much caution in movement.  


As they got closer, Sirius seemed to be getting more nervous. True, he was good at hiding it, but Remus knew better after this long, and could feel the tension in the way he held himself. Remus knocked his shoulder against Sirius, and Sirius leaned into it for a second before turning.  


“What’s up, Pads?”  


“Mmm,” Sirius hummed. “Just thinking about a needle going through my skin.”  


“You’ll be fine,” Remus promised him. Without letting himself think about it for too long, he slung an arm around Sirius’ shoulders. _James and Sirius do this all the time and it doesn’t mean anything,_ he told himself firmly, even as he felt Sirius relax into his touch. All too soon, they arrived with another bang in a back alley of Glasgow near the shop.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still haven't decided what Sirius is getting pierced, so if anyone wants to put forth their vote in the comments, feel free! Nothing genital and probably no surface piercings unless someone's really, really convincing.


End file.
